Safe Communities Blog

Welcome, it’s great to see you again! If you’re just tuning in then I’ll give you a heads up: you’ve landed on a blog where we share stories, advice, community events and other awesome information related to youth prevention/intervention. Today’s post is a follow-up to a previous post on tips for working with teens. (Click here if you missed it!) I offer to you six pieces of advice for planning and facilitating meeting with young people (in case you haven’t noticed, I love lists!).

Let’s begin:

Talk Less, Listen More.Aim for 20% you talking, 80% them talking. Part of the reason youth sometimes hate going to school is because adults talk AT them for hours instead of talking WITH them. Admittedly sometimes the 20/80 rule is impossible, in which case you should find an activity that doesn’t involve talking at all like eating together, making art or playing basketball (remember HORSE?).

With time they’ll open up to you but if they don’t that is OKAY. Sometimes closing yourself off from others is a defense mechanism or a learned behavior. Perhaps they have been hurt by people they’ve trusted in the past and instead they want only to be with someone who won’t judge them or ask questions.

Listen more leads me to embrace the silence.Far too often do facilitators (mainly in group settings) ask the group, “Any questions?” and then move on with, “Great!” after about 2 heartbeats. Remember that everyone processes information differently and at their own pace. This is true for young people and adults. Let there be silence, normalize silence after asking a question and force yourself to wait until it feels a tad bit awkward before moving on. Many people need silence to feel confident raising their hands or to organize their thoughts into a logical question and if you move on to quickly it gives the impression that you don’t actually care.

Compliment people all the time.Generally speaking, young people are extremely self-critical and see themselves far differently than others. There is a lot of doubt living inside their minds accentuated by heavy competitiveness in schools. Offering reassurance helps balance the scales. Tell people when they do something well and remind them of their awesomeness every chance you get! Remember what I said about honesty and being real? Be sure you have unique compliments and individualize what you say; otherwise your reassurance will backfire.

Have a backup plan and be enthusiastic about using it. When you’re making an agenda it’s important to know ahead of time that your team may latch on to one activity and get super excited about the topic. If this happens, know that your 15 minute discussion may turn in to 30 or 40 minutes and be ready to adapt. Designate which activities you will scrap and which ones are most important well before your work begins.

Focus on process.If you plan well and create a detailed, thoughtful and interactive process for groups to work through they will blow you away with their insights and results. It’s okay to have expectations for their work because they can and will achieve them- sometimes in ways you don’t expect. However, if you want results you have to have a solid process. Throwing expectations in their face will get you nowhere if you don’t offer realistic and interesting ways of achieving them.

Lastly, outcomes of teambuilding and connection are more important than work product.I know I just said youth can and will achieve expectations but you should remember that sometimes your expectation needs to be connecting with one another. Offering a space for peer support is sometimes the single most important outcome of our meetings regardless of our work plan.

There you have it! What do you think? Let me know and share some of your tips with us by commenting below. For more tips on hosting youth meetings, check out this OJJDP resource.